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California: No longer the Golden State?

By Peter Aldhous

FROM the PC on your desk and the iPhone in your pocket to the bioengineered antibodies that give cancer patients precious extra months of life, the world owes much to a hotbed of innovation a short drive from my office – an hour on the freeway and I’m in the heart of Silicon Valley, after whizzing by Genentech, the planet’s premier biotech firm.

Thanks partly to its high-tech companies, an independent California would qualify for membership of the G8. So how come the state is on its knees, crippled by a budget deficit pushing towards &dollar;25 billion?